<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Heartaches By The Number by ATeirney</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670712">Heartaches By The Number</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATeirney/pseuds/ATeirney'>ATeirney</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 01:22:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>768</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23670712</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ATeirney/pseuds/ATeirney</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Courier Six ignores the advice of her friends and continues to avoid sleep, too haunted by the memories that come with it.</p><p>Meanwhile her and Boone continue to dance around each other, too afraid to get close.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Craig Boone/Female Courier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>24</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Heartaches By The Number</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            The more of her past that the Courier uncovered, the more she wanted to forget. When she had left Goodsprings, Zoe had been desperate to piece together what she had lost, to understand anything about herself just so she could have any idea of who she was. Countless nights she had sat awake, sweating and trembling as she tried to decipher the nightmares that had trampled her mind into the dust. But now? Now, she avoided sleep like it was a plague, spent the dark hours chewing on coyote tobacco to keep her eyelids from growing heavy. It worried her friends, she knew that much, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. A little fussing was nothing compared to the memories that haunted her each night.</p><p>            Not that it wasn’t annoying to be bothered with questions and dogged by pitying looks. Arcade was the most vocal about it, hounding her about the health risks of sleep-deprivation, begging her to let him help her with the growing addiction it brought and sometimes even resorting to slipping her a dose of Med-X. Cass and Raul just tried to get her drunk enough to pass out at least once a week, a tactic she could respect and even gave into some of the time. Then there was Lily and Veronica, they were the worst of it. Lily would spend her time knitting scarves and blankets, hoping the comfort would help her drift off, always worrying. Zoe chalked that up to the abuela in her. Veronica always asked her if she wanted to talk about it, as if she would ever want to relive it while she was awake too. Even Rex would lay his chin on her lap and offer a pathetic whimper, the only one who could guilt her into pretending to try.</p><p>            Then there was Boone, the NCR sniper just as haunted by his past as she was. He had caught her a few times early on, readied his gun in a second when she woke up screaming. After calming her down that first night he never mentioned it again. Zoe’s best guess was that he recognized that look in her eyes, knew all too well the kind of thing that could leave a person clawing at their own throats. He never pressed, never tried to coax her to bed after a long day, just let her cope however worked. Hell, sometimes he stayed up with her, sitting beside her and cleaning his gun as she chewed away in comfortable silence.</p><p>            Nights like that helped to soothe the wound somewhat, though she couldn’t place why. Maybe it was the fact that she knew the Legion had ruined them both, told her she wasn’t alone in her misery. Or maybe it was just having someone there to remind her that it was all over, helping her fight back. She didn’t know, wasn’t sure if she cared, it helped. He helped. Some nights she entertained the idea of the two of them, how she’d invite him back to her room, finally find some solace and maybe end up too tired after a good fuck to dream. But his heart was buried with Carla, and her own was too battered to be accepted by anyone anymore.</p><p>            Still, she wondered if in another life it could’ve worked. Sometimes they felt downright domestic together up in the Lucky 38, and it was nice to fool herself for a few stolen moments. When he hovered over her cooking, grunting and sitting down when she told him to either play taste-tester or get out of her way. When they got back from a long trek and he’d offer her use of the shower first whether it was her turn or not, knowing full well whoever went second would run out of hot water. His little hidden smile when she tossed him a gift of a new scope or repaired his glasses. But things like that didn’t happen to people like them, they were both out of second chances by now, and even a fling was out of the cards.</p><p>            What neither of them knew was that the deck wasn’t stacked the way they thought. In the privacy of their own minds they each wanted the same things, only to shut them down before even trying to reach. They had convinced themselves that they were too broken for the other, that after everything that had happened no one would want all the baggage that they dragged along behind them. And until they picked themselves back up off the ground, those stolen moments were all they would get.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Okay so this is Zoe Price, my angry Courier who used to be an officer's wife in the Legion. Might post more with her depending on how this fairs.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>